Is this a normal condition for the inside edge to wear down faster?
I never noticed this condition before as I always had to replace the rear tires often due to flats or other tire damage.
Is this just the way the car designed or is a alignment needed?

 

The camber of the rear tires will wear the inside faster than the outside. Totally normal and expected. I remember when I saw how much my inner tread had worn down and wondered the same thing.

 

Same on my car.

I made the mistake of not checking the tread wear on the inside, and almost spun out once on a wet day having too much confidence in my tires. So be sure to reach in and check the inner wear!

 

It's not just the camber, it's also the toe setting. If you reduce both of these at your next alignment, you'll significantly improve your rear tire wear. I did this on my wife's car since its a DD and not really used for spirited driving. Got 18,000 miles on her last set of rears with the new alignment settings.

 

I have this same wear issue on my '09 997.2 C2 and would greatly appreciate if you could share your toe & camber settings should they be applicable to my model/year.

Happy holidays to you and your loved ones.

 

I'm out of town for a few days but will post them up on Tuesday when I'm back home for you.

Pete

 

Could be different with the 997 but with my 2002 Boxster negative camber even a lot of negative camber doesn't appear to affect rear tire wear. I had the car in for new tires and had it aligned and the shop manager told me all was ok but the rear camber was close to its max. He said it would increase the cost of the alignment by some amount (I kinda remember "$60" to address this) and take more time. While the money was not a real problemI was pressed for time.

However, I was also concerned about how the car would feel on the road and iwth tire life but he assured me tire life would be unaffected and the car would not manifest any untoward behavior on the road.

Long story short he was right. The car felt great and tire life was very good.

With both my Boxster and my 996 Turbo I have the Porsche tech provide an alignment that is condusive to good rear tire life with the added requirement that the alignment must not in any way negatively impact the car's on the road behavior even at "speed".

I am not sure what numbers the techs use (well, I have the before and after numbers on the paperwork) but whatever numbers are used tire life is superb -- 20K+ miles from the rear tires and double that from the front tires -- and the tread wear is very even. The car's feel even at <static> is just great.

 

Pete,

I presume that you've made it back home OK and as such I would appreciate your posting of the alignment specs that you found to be to your liking.

My car is a 2009 997.2 C2 that has 19" GT2 style wheels and which I hope can use your specs.

 

Thanks for the reminder - here you go. The #s from 10/30/14 are the ones that yielded 18,000 miles of rear tire use. Tires were Hankook v12 Ventus Evo 2 in a 305/30-19 on 19"x12" GT3 style wheels. These are also directional tires so there wasn't any side to side rotation being done during that time. We took the rear toe down toward the bottom of the acceptable range.

 

Much obliged Pete!

Stay warm up there since your Winter starts in a couple of weeks! BTW, local temperature as of 4:30PM is 82 degrees, sunny blue skies with 10-15 NE winds.

 

Our winter is actually starting tomorrow night - 4"-6" of snow predicted from 7 PM Friday night to Noon on Saturday. That will shut us down for about 3 days. Pcars in and out comes the AWD pick-up

 

BRRRRRRRRRRRR! Our "winters" average low-mid 80's during the day and low 70's at night with ever present sunny blue skies and ocean water temperatures in the low 80's.

 

Just had my 06 C2S in for service and got the news..... My rear tires have cord showing on the inside edge after 8,244 miles. Granted it took me 4 years to get those 8,244 miles down. Mostly city driving, one PCA auto cross, but it's South West Florida roads and the roads suck, theY are HOT and tires get very sticky. I'm going to replace the Michelin Super Sports, try a proper alignment and pray I break the 10,000 mile mark on the next set.